and you have a true idea of the lad and of his duties. In dress, in the means of social and intellectual culture, his condition was far below that of the sons of farmers and mechanics of the present day. Many anecdotes have been published, of his incapacity for manual labor, or of his aversion to it. The testimony of his early companions and neighbors contradicts, in general and in particulars, all stories of his idleness.

"He was an industrious boy. He labored to the extent of his strength. He was the youngest son, and, perhaps, on that account received some indulgences. Men are now living who labored with him, in the field and in the mill-who shared his toils and his sports. They affirm that he always worked well and played fair.' Boys in those days were usually trained to hard service. I have heard Mr. Webster say that he had charge of his father's saw-mill, and was accustomed to tread back the log-carriage, 'when he was not heavier than a robin.' An old schoolmate of his told me that the mill was owned in shares, by several of the neighbors, who used it in turn. Boys were put into the mill to tend it, when it required the weight of two of them to turn back the 'rag-wheel' and bring the log-carriage to its

place to commence a new cut. He informed me that he had labored many a day with Daniel Webster, in this old mill, and that his companion was ever ready to do his part of the service. The same boy, Daniel, was accustomed to drive the team into the woods, where his elder brother, Ezekiel, cut the logs and assisted in loading them."

This mill has been, of late years, regarded as almost classic ground. Mr. Webster, who was notable for his attachment to the scenes of his youth, conducted his guests over the places marked in his memory, with honest pride. And the residents near these localities, admiring the man who in his fame never forgot "the rock whence he was hewn," gave to the haunts of the "little black Dan" a fame and a consequence which is usually reserved to be conferred by posterity. General S. P. Lyman, for many years the friend and intimate of Daniel Webster, gives the following description of the place, and notice of its memoirs :

"In the bed of a little brook, near where Daniel Webster was born, are the remains of a rude mill which his father built more than sixty years ago. The place is a dark glen, and was then surrounded by a majestic forest, which covered the neighboring hills. To that mill, Daniel Webster, though a

small boy, went frequently to assist his father. He was apt in learning anything useful, and soon became so expert in doing everything required, that his services as an assistant were valuable. But the time spent in manual labor was not misspent as regarded mental progress. After 'setting the saw' and 'hoisting the gate,' and while the saw was passing through the log, which usually occupied from ten to fifteen minutes for each board, Daniel was reading attentively some book, which he was permitted to take from the house. He had a passion, thus early, for reading history and biography."

There, surrounded by forests, in the midst of the great noise which such a mill makes, and this too without materially neglecting his task, he made himself familiar with the most remarkable events in history, and with the lives and characters of those who have furnished materials for its pages. What he read there he never forgot. So tenacious was his memory, that he could recite long passages from books which he read there, and scarcely looked at afterward. The solitude of the scene, the absence of everything to divert his attention, the simplicity of his occupation, the thoughtful and taciturn manner of his father, all

favored the process of transplanting every idea found in these books to his own fresh, fruitful and vigorous mind.

Books were, however, hard to find in that se questered place; and the young student, voracious of knowledge, was forced to read over and over again the old, because he could not obtain new. The Bible, Shakspeare, and Pope's Essay on Man, we have already mentioned as favorites with his father. With the first-named, the first of all books, he was very familiar, his early taste for poetry leading him to delight in studying the poetical portions of the inspired volume. The traces of this familiarity with Scripture, common to most men of enlarged minds, may be found continually in his writings and speeches. Pope's Essay on Man he committed to memory on the very day it fell into his hands; before he was fourteen years of age. When once asked why he committed that poem at so early an age, he replied, "I had nothing else to learn."

Since at twelve he "had nothing else to learn," we may presume that he had before that committed to memory Watts' Hymns and the metrical version of the Psalms. He was accustomed to say, in his later years, that he could repeat any